Massachusetts Avenue in East Arlington is shrinking. After contentious debate, the town decided to widen the sidewalks, add barrier islands in the street, and new plantings and benches.
The job is not done, but in spite of construction and less room for vehicles, the traffic doesn’t seem to have increased — one of those counterintuitive results that designers tout. The goal is to make the street more pedestrian and bike friendly and allow more community activities on sidewalks. Through the tree committee, John has been involved with the beautification side of things.
One of the issues that gets raised when a major disruption like this is afoot is the effect on small businesses. Neighbors are making a point of shopping local, hoping that Arlington merchants won’t suffer.
And to make sure residents don’t forget how important that is, there is an amusing signage campaign — signs saying that “Businesses are [fill in the blank] during Construction.”
For example, “Businesses are Opalescent during Construction.” Other Mad-Libs-type adjectives used are Quirky, Colorific, Radiant, Prismatic, Harmonic, Niblicious, and Excellent.
Below, I include a couple of the signs. And I tried to show how the project is coming along — the wide sidewalk, the plantings, the bench. I look forward to seeing how the residents begin to make use of their new public spaces.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Gee, and my buddy and I stopped at a Chinese restaurant in your neck of the woods for a quick dinner on our way to choir the other night and were surprised to be told it was closed for remodeling. Are some businesses using the disruption as their excuse for catching up with other projects?
Could be. It kind of makes sense.
Construction can really mess up businesses. Let’s hope customers stay loyal.
Especially if they voted for the sidewalk widening!
I love the creative projects you find to write about–this is such a clever idea!